NBA

Houston Rockets head basketball coach Kevin McHale has lost his youngest daughter, Alexandra “Sasha” McHale at the young age of 23.

Sasha McHale, who was known as a “daddy’s girl”, according to Rockets assistant coach Kelvin Sampson, died Saturday morning in Minneapolis, after a long battle with lupus. She had been hospitalized with a condition related to the autoimmune disease.

Real simple. Money talked and James Harden walked … away from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Houston Rockets.

Yep, if you haven’t heard, unable to work out an extension with Harden, the Thunder traded the Sixth Man of the Year to the Rockets on Saturday night, breaking up the young core of the Western Conference champions.

Spokesman Tim Frank said Thursday the league is finalizing procedures to deal with flopping, the art of falling down when little or no contact was made in an effort to trick referees into calling a foul.

Frank said the competition committee met two weeks ago and discussed plans that would go in place this season. Commissioner David Stern believes too many players are deceiving referees by flopping and has been seeking a way to properly penalize them.